GLOSSARY
A
Accountability: being answerable to all stakeholders, including any natural or
social systems affected by a business such as customers, employees, and
communities
Appreciative Inquiry: a philosophy of organizational assessment and change that
seeks examples of success to emulate and organizational or personal strengths to
build upon, rather than focusing upon fixing negative or ineffective
organizational processes
B
Best Practice: an effective, innovative solution, process, or procedure that
demonstrates a business’ dedication to making progress in environmental and
corporate social responsibility; sometimes shared with collaborators and
competitors to shape standards for an industry
Biodiesel: a type of fuel made by combining animal fat or vegetable oil (such as
soybean oil or used restaurant grease) with alcohol; biodiesel can be directly
substituted for diesel (known as B100, for 100% biodiesel), or be used as an
additive mixed with traditional diesel (known as B20, for 20% bio-diesel)
Bioenergy: energy generated from renewable, biological sources (biomass) such as
plants, to be used for heat, electricity, or vehicle fuel
Biofuel: fuel created from renewable, biological sources such as plants or
animal byproducts, but excluding biological material (such as natural gas, coal,
or methane) which has been transformed by geological processes
Biomass: living or recently-dead organic material that can be used as an energy
source or in industrial production; excludes organic material that has been
transformed by geological processes (such as coal or petroleum)
Biomimicry: a science that studies natural processes and models in order to
imitate the designs to solve human problems, i.e. studying a leaf to better
understand and design solar cells
Brown Power/Energy: electricity generated from the combustion of nonrenewable
fossil fuels (coal, oil, or natural gas) which generates significant amounts of
greenhouse gases
Brownfield: land previously utilized by commercial or industrial facilities that
remains abandoned with known or perceived environmental contamination
C
Calvert: an investment firm that highlights socially responsible investing and
publishes an annual index of the largest U.S. companies that represent socially
responsible investments
Cap and Trade System: a strategy to reduce carbon emissions via financial
incentives; “caps” establish emissions limits and fines for exceeding those
limits, while companies operating below their carbon limits can sell or “trade”
their offsets to companies that are operating above the limits
Carbon Footprint: the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted directly or
indirectly through any human activity, typically expressed in equivalent tons of
either carbon or carbon dioxide
Carbon Trading: a trading system for countries, companies and individuals
designed to offset carbon emissions from one activity with another, whereby
those who cannot meet their emissions goals may purchase credits from those who
surpass their goals
Cause-related Marketing: a business strategy whereby a company aligns its
mission and goals to create a specific and tailored partnership with a nonprofit
organization or cause
Ceres: a national network of investors, environmental organizations and other
public interest groups working with companies and investors to address
sustainability challenges such as global climate change; Ceres hosts an annual
competition to highlight the best examples of sustainability reporting in North
America; pronounced “series”
Child Labor: the practice of employing children under a specified legal minimum
age as set by a country or government; more frequently exploited in developing
countries in order to establish competitive labor costs
Clean Air Act: federal legislation passed in 1970 and amended in 1990 that
authorizes the EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards and to regulate
industry in order to meet those maximum emissions levels
Clean Production: a concept developed under the Kyoto Protocol in which
manufacturing processes reduce environmental impact and decrease ecological
problems by minimizing energy and raw materials use, and making sure emissions
and waste are as minimal and as non-toxic to environmental and human health as
possible
Clean Water Act: federal legislation passed in 1972 and amended in 1976 that
requires the EPA to set maximum pollutant levels for each known contaminant in
U.S. surface waters and authorizes the EPA to regulate industrial discharge in
order to meet those standards
Climate Change: changes in global climate patterns (such as temperature,
precipitation, or wind) that last for extended periods of time as a result of
either natural processes or human activity; the contemporary concern is that
human activity is now transcending natural processes in causing the most
prevalent climate changes of our time
Closed-loop Recycling: a process of utilizing a recycled product in the
manufacturing of a similar product or the remanufacturing of the same product
Closed-loop Supply Chain: an ideal in which a supply chain completely reuses,
recycles or composts all wastes generated during production; at minimum
"closed-loop supply chain" indicates that the company which produces a good is
also responsible for its disposal
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or
Superfund): federal legislation passed in 1980 that established a tax on the
petroleum and chemical industries to fund cleanup of hazardous waste sites, as
well as establishing EPA authority to assign responsibility for that cleanup to
the polluters or purchasers of contaminated land
Corporate Citizenship: a company’s responsible involvement with the wider
community in which it is situated
Corporate Health: the idea that companies, especially commercial businesses,
have a duty to care for all of their stakeholders in all aspects of their
operations
Corporate Responsibility Report: a periodically-published report of a company’s
corporate responsibility practices, goals, and progress toward achieving those
goals that may be included with the company’s annual report or as a separate
publication that focuses on the company’s social and environmental impact; the
process of creating this report is meant to uncover strengths and weaknesses as
well as enhance transparency for all company stakeholders; see Corporate
Sustainability Report
Corporate Responsibility: the degree to which companies manage business
practices to produce an overall positive impact on society
Corporate Social Responsibility: the continuing commitment by businesses to
behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the
quality of life of the workplace as well as the local community and society at
large; a company’s obligation to be accountable to all of its stakeholders in
all its operations and activities (including financial stakeholders as well as
suppliers, customers, and employees) with the aim of achieving sustainable
development not only in the economic dimension but also in the social and
environmental dimensions
Corporate Sustainability Report: a periodic report published by a company to
outline its progress toward meeting its financial, environmental, and social
sustainability goals; often published in compliance with third-party standards
such as the UN Global
Compact or Global Reporting Initiative;
see Corporate Responsibility Report
Cradle-to-Cradle: a design philosophy put forth by architect William McDonough
that considers the life-cycle of a material or product, and ensures that the
product is completely recycled at the end of its defined lifetime
D
Demand-Side Management: the implementation of policies that control or influence
demand of certain products or services
Dematerialization: the reduction of total materials used in providing customers
with products or services
Domini Social Investment: an investment firm specializing exclusively in
socially-responsible investing based on its own development and application of
social and environmental standards
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI): the first global indexes to track the
financial performance of sustainability-driven companies
E
Eco-Efficiency: the creation of more goods and services while using fewer
resources and creating less waste and pollution
Eco-friendly: a product, practice, or process that is “green” or good for the
environment, creating no unnecessary or hazardous waste and minimizing use of
non-renewable, natural resources
Ecological Economics: see Natural Capital, Ethical Investments, Environmental
Valuation
Ecological Footprint: the total amount of land, food, water, and other resources
used by, or the total ecological impact of, a person or organization’s
subsistence; usually measured in acres or hectares of productive land
Ecological Justice, a.k.a. Ecojustice: the concept that all components of an
ecosystem (such as plant and animal life as well as natural resources) have a
right to be free from human exploitation and free from destruction,
discrimination, bias, or extinction; distinct from Environmental Justice
Energy Efficiency: the result of actions taken to reduce dependence on or to
save fuels, i.e., selection of road vehicles with higher MPG or the use of
renewable sources of power for heating and cooling
Environmental Audit: a systematic, documented, periodic and objective evaluation
of how well a project, organization, individual, or service is performing in
terms of environmental impact, including, but not necessarily limited to,
compliance with any relevant standards or regulations
Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): an assessment of potential environmental
effects of development projects; required by the National Environmental Policy
Act (NEPA) for any proposed major federal action with significant environmental
impact
Environmental Justice: the concept of equal access to environmental resources
and protection from environmental hazards regardless of race, ethnicity,
national origin, or income; distinct from Ecological Justice
Environmental Risk Assessment (ERA): the tracking and rating of environmental
risks, such as emissions, associated with a product and its manufacturing
Environmental Standards: see Standards
Environmental Sustainability: see Sustainability
Environmental Valuation: the inclusion of environmental costs and benefits into
accounting practices using such mechanisms as taxes, tax incentives, and
subsidies; by quantifying environmentally-related costs and revenues, better
management decisions and increased investment in environmental protection and
improvement are encouraged
Environmental, Social and Government (ESG): an acronym commonly used by
investment firms to refer to the types of issues or factors considered in
measuring a company’s “responsible practices”; these issues or factors include
the environmental effects of a company’s business practices, social metrics such
as fair pay and treatment of labor and community involvement and ethical
corporate governance practices that are both transparent and anti-corruption
Ethical Investments: see Socially Responsible Investing
F
Fair Trade: an international trading partnership that seeks to help marginalized
producers and workers achieve financial self-sufficiency by establishing direct
lines of trade between producers and consumers, guaranteeing producers fair
prices for goods, restricting exploitative labor processes, and favoring
environmentally-sustainable production processes through a system of labeling
products as “fair trade”
Fossil Fuels: fuels, such as natural gas, coal, and petroleum, that formed from
the fossilized (or geologically transformed) remains of plants and animals
G
Geothermal Energy: a natural and sustainable form of heat energy derived from
steam and hot water found below the surface of the Earth
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI): a reporting standard generally accepted to be
the leading international standard for reporting social, environmental and
economic performance
Global Warming: the gradual, average increase of temperature of the Earth's
near-surface atmosphere that is accelerated by the greenhouse gases emitted by
human industry; global warming is one type of and a contributor to other types
of global climate change in general, such that at individual locations the
temperature may fluctuate or drop even though the global average is rising
Green Accounting: the incorporation of the amount of natural resources used and
pollutants expelled into conventional economic accounting in order to provide a
detailed measure of all environmental consequences of any and all economic
activities
Green Building: a comprehensive process of design and construction that employs
techniques to minimize adverse environmental impacts and reduce the energy
consumption of a building, while contributing to the health and productivity of
its occupants; a common metric for evaluating green buildings is the LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification
Green Design: the design of products, services, buildings, or experiences that
are sensitive to environmental issues and achieve greater efficiency and
effectiveness in terms of energy and materials use
Greenhouse Effect: the trapping of heat within the Earth’s atmosphere by
greenhouse gases such as CO2, which is necessary to keep the planet at a
temperature warm enough to sustain life, but becomes dangerous when greenhouse
gases produced by humans cause the effect to intensify and push the global
temperature to too high a level
Greenhouse Gas: a gas that contributes to the natural greenhouse effect, whereby
heat is trapped within the Earth’s atmosphere, including: carbon dioxide,
methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur
hexafluoride
Greenwashing: the process by which a company publicly and misleadingly declares
itself to be environmentally-friendly but internally participates in
environmentally- or socially-unfriendly practices
K
Kyoto Protocol: an international agreement reached during a summit in Kyoto,
Japan in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol builds upon the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change and sets targets and timetables for industrialized
countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions; 175 parties have so far
ratified the Protocol and are legally bound to adhere to its principles
L
LEED Certification: an acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
sponsored by the United States Green Building Council that creates standards for
developing high performance, sustainable buildings
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): a process of evaluating the effects of a product or
its designated function on the environment over the entire period of the
product’s life in order to increase resource-use efficiency and decrease
liabilities; commonly referred to as “cradle-to-grave” analysis
LOHAS Market: an acronym for Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability; a market
that consists of mindful consumers passionate about the environment,
sustainability, social issues and health
M
Meta-Trend: a global and overarching force that will affect many
multidimensional changes; for example, environmental impacts on business,
individuals and countries
N
Natural Capital: a company’s environmental assets and natural resources existing
in the physical environment, either owned (such as mineral, forest, or energy
resources) or simply utilized in business operations (such as clean water and
atmosphere); often traditional economic measures and indicators fail to take
into account the development use of natural capital, although preservation of
its quantity and quality and therefore its sustainable use is essential to a
business’ long-term survival and growth
Non-Governmental Organization (NGO): a private, non-profit organization that is
independent of business and government, that works toward some specific social,
environmental, or economic goal through research, activism, training, promotion,
advocacy, lobbying, community service, etc.
Non-renewable Resource: a natural resource that is unable to be regenerated or
renewed fully and without loss of quality once it is used, i.e., fossil fuels or
minerals
O
Open-Loop Recycling: a recycling process in which materials from old products
are made into new products in a manner that changes the inherent properties of
the materials, often via a degradation in quality, such as recycling white
writing paper into cardboard rather than more premium writing paper; often used
for steel, paper, and plastic, open-loop recycling is also known as downcycling
or reprocessing
Organic: a term signifying the absence of pesticides, hormones, synthetic
fertilizers and other toxic materials in the cultivation of agricultural
products; ‘organic’ is also a food labeling term that denotes the product
was produced under the authority of the Organic Foods Production Act
P
People, Planet, Profit: the expanded set of values for companies and individuals
to use in measuring organizational and societal success, specifically economic,
environmental and social values; "people, planet, profit" are also referred to
as the components of the "triple bottom line"; see Triple Bottom Line
R
Renewable Energy: energy derived from non-fossil fuel resources (such as solar,
wind, or geothermal energy) that can be replenished in full without a loss of
quality; separate from sustainable energy because of emissions or other
unsustainable impacts of the process of creating renewable energy
Renewable Portfolio Standard: a state policy that requires that state to meet a
certain percentage of its energy needs with renewable energy by a certain date
Responsible Practices: business practices that exemplify corporate
responsibility; see Corporate Responsibility
S
Shareholder Resolution: a corporate policy recommendation proposed by a
shareholder holding at least $2,000 market value or 1% of the company's voting
shares presented for a vote by other shareholders at the company's annual
meeting; an increasing number of shareholder resolutions request a company
and/or its board of directors to carry out responsible business practices,
especially regarding social, environmental and human rights issues
Social Entrepreneurship: an entrepreneurial endeavor that focuses on sustainable
social change, rather than merely the generation of profit
Social Responsibility: see Corporate Social Responsibility
Social Return on Investment (SROI): a monetary measure of the social value for a
community or society yielded by a specific investment
Social Standards: see Standards
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI): an investment practice that gives
preference to companies that value social and environmental impacts in addition
to financial gain; socially responsible investments, also known as "ethical
investments," involve companies and practices that cause little or no depletion
of natural assets or environmental degradation, and that do not infringe the
rights of workers, women, indigenous people, children nor animals
Stakeholder Engagement: the ongoing process of soliciting feedback regarding a
company’s business practices or major decisions from financial shareholders, as
well as individuals or groups effected by corporate environmental or social
practices such as suppliers, consumers, employees, and the local community
Stakeholder: an individual or group potentially affected by the activities of a
company or organization; in sustainable business models the term includes
financial shareholders as well as those affected by environmental or social
factors such as suppliers, consumers, employees, the local community, and the
natural environment
Standards: government or privately-created lists of social and environmental
criteria used to regulate or evaluate the corporate responsibility of various
companies; examples include the Global Reporting Initiative and UN Global
Compact as well as indexes used by socially responsible investment firms such as
CERES, Calvert and Domini
Strategic Philanthropy: a corporate philanthropy or community giving program
that maximizes positive impact in the community as well as for the company,
including bolstered employee recruitment, retention and a stronger company brand
Supply-Side Economics: the use of policies such as tax cuts and business
incentives to control to supply of certain goods or services
Sustainability: the successful meeting of present social, economic, and
environmental needs without compromising the ability of future generation to
meet their own needs; derived from the most common definition of sustainability,
created in 1987 at the World Commission on Environment and Development
Sustainable Design: a process of product, service, or organizational design that
complies with the principles of social, economic, and environmental
sustainability
Sustainable Development: development that utilizes tools, supplies and
strategies that protect and enhance the earth’s natural resources and diverse
eco-systems so as to meet the social and economic needs of the present without
compromising the ability to meet the needs of the future
Sustainable Energy: energy produced both from renewable resources or by use of
clean production technology
T
Tragedy of the Commons: the inherent conflict between individual interests and
the common good, based on the assumption that an individual uses a public good
without considering the impact of his or her use on the availability of that
good, therefore resulting in the over-exploitation of a public resource; the
concept is explored in a 1968 essay written by Garrett Hardin
Transmaterialization: the process of substituting a service for a product in
order to meet customer needs while reducing the use of materials and natural
resources
Transparency: a measure of increased accountability and decreased corruption in
which a business reports on its ethics and performance results through
accessible publication of the business’ practices and behavior; there is a
strong movement to increase the transparency of business processes via
independently-verified corporate responsibility reporting
Triple Bottom Line: an expansion of the traditional company reporting framework
of net financial gains or losses to take into account environmental and social
performance; see People, Planet, Profit
Triple Top Line: a phrase describing a company’s improved top-line financial
performance over the long term due to sustainable business practices, including
less capital investment and increased revenues
U
United Nations Global Compact: an international initiative that seeks to bring
businesses together voluntarily in order to promote socially and environmentally
responsible practices; signatories pledge to uphold the Compact's 10 Principles
United States Business Council on Sustainable Development (USBCSD): a non-profit
organization promoting sustainable development by establishing networks and
partnerships between American companies and government entities; the USBCSD
provides a voice for industry and is the U.S. branch of the World Business
Council of Sustainable Development
V
Venture Philanthropy: a charitable giving model that bridges venture capital
strategies with philanthropic giving, creating strategic relationships among
individuals and nonprofit organizations
W
Waste-to-Energy: a recovery process in which waste is incinerated or otherwise
turned into steam or electricity, and used to generate heat, light or power
through the process of combustion
Waste-to-Profit: the process of using one company’s waste or by-product as the
input or raw material for another company, thereby increasing business profits
and decreasing waste; also referred to as byproduct synergy
World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD): an association of 170
international companies that provides business leadership with support to
operate, innovate, and grow through sustainable development initiatives that
incorporate the "three pillars of economic growth:" environmental protection,
social development and economic growth
Z
Zero Waste: a production system aiming to eliminate the volume and toxicity of
waste and materials by conserving or recovering all resources
